Japanese Red Army Hijackers Willing to Return to Tokyo to Face Trial

April 15th, 2008

(UPDATE 2: 1/12/2009) Last of the children of the Japanese Red Army will return to Japan:

The 14-year-old son of one of the Japanese men who hijacked a Japan Airlines airplane and defected to North Korea in 1970 will travel to Japan next week, the last of the children of the hijackers to move to Japan from the country. A supporter of the hijackers’ family members left for Pyongyang on Saturday, where he will meet with the boy and accompany him to Japan via Beijing on Tuesday.

The boy is the son of Moriaki Wakabayashi, 61, who is on the international wanted list for hijacking the plane. The supporter left the Chinese capital after obtaining a special traveling permit from the Japanese Embassy for the boy, who was born in North Korea and does not have a Japanese passport. Family members of the nine hijackers began returning to Japan in 2001. Those remaining in North Korea will be the four of the nine hijackers still living in the country and two wives who are on the international wanted list for their alleged involvement in the kidnapping of Japanese nationals for North Korea. (Japan Today, 1/10/2009)

(UPDATE: 5 days after NKeconWatch posts the press release)

From the Japan Times (h/t OneFreeKorea)

Asked in a telephone conversation whether the hijackers called for help from the European Parliament, Ford said, “The only help they seemed to want was to publicize their offer.”

Ford said the meeting was set up by his North Korean hosts when discussing barriers to the removal of North Korea from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

He said he has informed the Japanese government of his meeting with the hijackers.

“This is an opportunity that I hope the Japanese government will take to move closer to normalize relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang,” Ford said.

Of the nine hijackers who sought asylum in the North, three have died and two who later returned to Japan were convicted.

Read the full article here:
EU lawmaker meets North fugitives
Japan Times
4/15/2008

Press Release:

redarmy2.JPG

 

Monday 7 April 2008

Glyn Ford (Labour MEP for South West England), met in Pyongyang with Moriaki Wakabayashi and Takahiro Konishi two of the four remaining Japanese hijackers in North Korea. Moriaki Wakabayashi and Takahiro Konishi, who hijacked Japan Airlines Yodo Flight 351 from Tokyo to Fukuoka in 1970 declared that they are willing to return to Japan to face trial. 

Following the meeting with the hijackers, Glyn Ford MEP, said: “All four hijackers are now willing to return to Japan.  This offer is only conditional on the dropping of arrest warrants against three of them for possible complicity in the abductions of Japanese citizens to North Korea in the 1980s. Their return would mean that the last remaining obstacle to the US removing its terrorist state designation of North Korea would have been removed consequently allowing progress to be made towards a final settlement of the current nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.”

He continued “This is an opportunity that I hope the Japanese government will take to move closer to normalise relations between Tokyo and Pyongyang. If US Army deserter and defector Robert Jenkins can return to Japan after only serving a token 30 days in jail I see no reason why the Japanese government should refuse to accept an offer that might well lead to the four remaining hijackers, all now in their late 50s and 60s, facing up to 12 years in prison.”

In January Glyn’s book North Korea on the Brink: Struggle for Survival was published by Pluto Press. It will be published in Tokyo in June by Daiichihoki and in Korea by Humanitas.

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Posted in Aviation, International trade, Japan, Japanese Red Army, USA | Comments Closed

South Korea continues imports of DPRK coal

April 14th, 2008

From Yonhap:

A North Korea-registered cargo ship carrying coal arrived in South Korea’s port city of Ulsan Sunday amid increased cross-border tensions, according to maritime police.

The 2,496-ton freighter Changseong carrying a 29-member crew docked at the port, South Gyeongsang province, around 10:20 a.m. earlier in the day.

The ship carried 4,000 tons of coal, the first batch of 12,000 tons to be delivered by April 25, the police said.

And how much are they paying? IFES has the answer…

North Korea, in keeping with rising international coal prices, appears to have hiked up the export price of heating briquettes twice in the last three months. A North Korea insider in Shenyang, China recently reported, “North Korea’s Trade Bureau Price Control Division raised export prices at least twice as this month came around, so the export price soared up to 50 USD per ton,” and, “As the rising international coal price trend continues, there is a high probability that North Korean heating briquette prices will also rise further.”

Last year, North Korean heating briquettes were exported at 30 USD per ton, but as 2008 rolled around and international prices suddenly shot up, DPRK coal prices rose by over 50 percent, putting a significant burden on Chinese importers. However, Chinese importers still prefer DPRK briquettes as shipping costs from alternatives such as Vietnam or Indonesia still make North Korean imports relatively inexpensive.

It has been reported that the DPRK Trade Bureau has approved the export of briquettes to China at below-official prices of 44~45 USD per ton in cases in which there is Chinese capital or equipment has been invested in the coal mine. These charcoal briquettes are North Korea’s largest export item, with China importing 170 million USD-worth in 2007 alone.

So if South Korea was lucky enough to get China’s price (an assumption that might not be the case): 12,000 tons (by April 25) x USD$50/ton= $600,000

Read the full articles here:
N. Korean cargo ship visits Ulsan  
Yonhap
4/13/2008

DPRK coal briquet export prices jump this year
Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
(NK Brief No. 08-4-10-1)
2008-04-10

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Posted in Coal, Energy, Institute for Far Eastern Studies, International trade, South Korea | 1 Comment »

North Korea cracks down on moonshine…

April 13th, 2008

According to the Daily NK:

An inside North Korean source relayed that North Korean authorities have stepped up its regulations of  “home-brewed wine production and sales” with the purpose of eradicating the food waste by citizens.

Party Inspection Units are looking for all kinds of food waste (marriages, sixtieth-birthday anniversaries, sacrificial rites, and dinners among leaders), but liquor producers and distributors are on the list of targets.  Propaganda is being fed to local workers, extolling them not to waste food, and in order to minimize any bribery or favoritism, inspectors are being called from neighboring provinces.

Those prosecuted in the inspections have been levied fines and all of their liquor and materials confiscated (and I really doubt they are pouring it down drains).

Read the whole story here:
North Korea’s Inspection of Home-Brewed Wine by the Party
Daily NK
Jung Kwon Ho
4/9/2008

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Posted in Alcohol, Arduous March, General markets (FMR: Farmers Market) | 2 Comments »

When food and politics collide

April 13th, 2008

News of the DPRK’s food shortages began to surface several weeks ago when Good Friends reported:

North Korea’s chronic food shortage has worsened to affect even some of the country’s elite citizens in the capital, a South Korean aid group said Thursday.

The communist nation has not given rice rations to medium- and lower-level officials living in Pyongyang this month after cutting the rations by 60 percent in February, the Good Friends aid agency said in its regular newsletter.

Pyongyang citizens are considered the most well-off in the isolated, impoverished country, where the government controls most means of production and operates a centralized ration system. Only those deemed most loyal to Kim Jong Il’s regime are allowed to live in the capital.

The food situation is more serious in rural areas, with residents in many regions in the country’s South Hwanghae province living without food rations since November, the aid group said. (AP)

Why was this the case?

Floods last August ruined part of the main yearly harvest, creating a 25 percent shortfall in the food supply and putting 6 million people in need, according to the U.N. World Food Program.

Over the winter, drought damaged the wheat and barley crop, according to a recent report in the official North Korean media. That crop normally tides people over during the summer “lean season” until the fall harvest.

North Korea’s ability to buy food, meanwhile, has plunged, as the cost of rice and wheat on the global market has jumped to record highs, up 50 percent in the past six months.

China also appears to have tightened its food squeeze on North Korea for domestic reasons. In order to meet local demand and control inflation, Beijing slapped a 22 percent tariff on grain exports to the North. (Washington Post)

So North Korea’s domestic agricultural production has fallen and so have commercial food imports (international inflation, OECD government subsidies for bio-fuels, and increasing fuel prices have combined to raise the prices of commodities such as rice and pork up to 70% in the course of a year). 

Compounding this problem, however, agricultural aid from North Korea’s two most reliable benefactors (China and South Korea) has dried up.

[China] has quietly slashed food aid to North Korea, according to figures compiled by the World Food Program. Deliveries plummeted from 440,000 metric tons in 2005 to 207,000 tons in 2006. Last year there was a slight increase in aid, but it remained far below the levels of the past decade. (Washington Post)

And strained relations with the new Lee government in South Korea have not helped:

The South typically sends about 500,000 tonnes of rice and 300,000 tonnes of fertiliser a year. None has been sent this year and without the fertiliser, North Korea is almost certain to see a fall of several tens of tonnes in its harvest (Reuters)

So what will be the mitigating factors that prevent another humanitarian emergency?

“The reason for the mass starvation that occurred in late 90s is that North Korea faced natural disasters without expanding the market’s capability to substitute for the broken planned economy capability, and so the damage to North Korean citizens was inevitably large.”

“The market in North Korea has expanded in the last 10 years. The supply and demand structure of daily necessities, including food items, has been formed.”

“Because the market capacity has expanded, the possibility of a mass-scale starvation occurring is no longer high. In actuality, the change in food prices is being monitored at the market.”

-Dong Yong Seung, the Samsung Economic Research Institute’s Economic Security Team Chief, speaking at the 19th Expert Forum sponsored by the Peace Foundation (Daily NK)

Mr. Dong’s analysis addresses the improved efficiency of DRPK’s market supply chains but does not address the effects of an adverse supply shock. 

The UN seems ready to help, although it has not been asked:

Institutionally, mechanisms are in place in North Korea to ring the international alarm bell before hunger turns into mass starvation. The World Food Program monitors nutrition in 50 counties, and the Kim government has become expert in asking for help.

“The North Koreans know that they are facing a difficult situation and have made it increasingly clear in the past few weeks that they will need outside assistance to meet their growing needs,” the U.N. official said, asking not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

North Korea, which even with a good harvest still falls about 1 million tonnes, or around 20 percent, short of what it needs to feed its people, relies heavily on aid from China, South Korea and U.N. aid agencies to fill the gap.

The UN official said it was clear from a variety of sources that the food security situation was worsening in North Korea and that it needed to be addressed.

Last month Kwon Tae-jin, an expert on the North’s agriculture sector at the South’s Korea Rural Economic Institute told Reuters that if South Korea and other nations did not send food aid, the North would be faced with a food crisis worse than the one in the 90s.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation said in late March it sees the North having a shortfall of about 1.66 million tonnes in cereals for the year ending in October 2008.

The North will start to feel the shortage the hardest in the coming months when its meagre stocks of food, already depleted by flooding that hit the country last year, dry up and before the start of its potato harvest in June and July. (Washington Post)

The UNWFP, however, will be under pressure from its donors to monitor food aid and make sure it is not diverted to non-emergency uses.  Under these conditions, it is not likely that they will be asked to provide much aid until a catastrophy is already underway.  So with the UN out of the picture, who is best positioned to prevent the reemergence of a humanitarian crisis in North Korea today? China.  

Despite China’s own food probelms, however, it is always likely to capitulate, at least in part, to North Korea’s emergency requests.  China does not want to deal with another North Korean famine, particularly during the Olympic season, and they certainly do not want to deal with any political instability that could result. 

Yonhap reports that the DPRK has asked the Chinese for 150,000 tons of corn this year.  Chinas says they will give 50,000 tons–and that is just initially. (Yonhap)

UPDATE 4/14/2008: I still have not seen any reports in the media of Noth Korea seeking suport from Russia.

UPDATE 6/9/2008: China increases grain export quota to North Korea to 150,000 tons

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in 1990s Famine, Agriculture, Arduous March, China, Civil society, Economic reform, Food, General markets (FMR: Farmers Market), Price liberalization, South Korea, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, UN World Food Program | 2 Comments »

Pyongyang sends USD $2million to Chongryun

April 12th, 2008

If you want to make money, you have to spend money. 

Excerpts from Yonhap:

North Korea regards [Chongryun] the pro-Pyongyang residents’ group in Japan as its major overseas support base. The pro-communist group operates a number of primary and junior and high schools in Japan where students of Korean ancestry learn the Korean history and language.

Kim Jong-il “sent 205 million yen as educational aid fund and stipends to the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan for the democratic national education of the children of Koreans in Japan,” the Korean Central News Agency said in a report, monitored in Seoul.

The latest North Korean financial donation comes amid warnings by international aid groups that the isolated communist country faces its worst food shortage in years.

Read the full sotry here:
N. Korea donates US$2 million to pro-Pyongyang group in Japan: report
Yonhap
4/12/2008

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Posted in Chongryun, Education, Japan, Political economy | Comments Closed

China/North Korea financial integration

April 12th, 2008

Last week we discussed the growing presence of North Korean companies in Russia.  This week, the Daily NK reports on China’s first steps at financial integration with North Korea:

China has introduced a new settlement system which allows North Korean business to open bank accounts in China and settle business transactions in Yuan, the Nikkei reported on Sunday.

With the adoption of the system, North Korean people and companies can open Yuan bank accounts within China after some formalities and use the accounts for trade settlement with their Chinese business partners. Accordingly, North Korea is now able to buy foreign currencies such as dollars and euros with its Yuan income from trade. In addition, North Korea can legally bring in foreign currencies or send them to third countries.

North Korean companies used to have difficulties of making a trade settlement with China in cash or by barter since the U.S. enacted financial sanctions on North Korea and China imposed economic sanctions regarding remittance and bank accounts after North Korea’s nuclear tests. However, China too suffered from the sanctions as the amount of Yuan smuggled into North Korea has skyrocketed proportional to the increasing volume of trade between North Korea and China.

The new settlement system will help reinvigorate the trade between two countries. However, the system can cause concerns at the Six Party Talks as it lowers the bargaining power needed to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear programs, the Nikkei said.

Meanwhile, the People’s Government of Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture announced last February that Jilin Province would allow North Korean people and companies operating in China to open Yuan bank accounts for trade purpose starting with February 20, 2008.

You can read the full article here:
China Lifts Sanctions on North Korea
Daily NK
Park Eun Jae
4/9/2008

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Posted in Banking, China, Finance | Comments Closed

A School Girl’s Diary at NKIDP

April 9th, 2008

I just returned home from a screening of the North Korean film, A School Girl’s Diary (ASGD), hosted by James Person at  the  North Korean International Documentation Project (NKIDP) and  Suk-Young Kim from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Although times have changed significantly in North Korea since the famed Sea of Blood was released, the purpose of the cinematic arts within the North Korean system has not.  In short, film in the DPRK is meant to be regime enhancing—reinforcing official social and political norms.  What is interesting about ASGD compared with previous North Korean films, however, is the muted use of propaganda and tacit admission that things are not perfect in the Workers Paradise.  Is it possible the change in communications tactics is the result of changing attitudes within North Korean society?

Sea of Blood is as subtle as a pulp comic.  It offers action, intense feelings, flat characters (clear protagonist/antagonist), and a simple “us vs. them” plot line.  In the film, Koreans are the victims of brutal Japanese imperialism and Kim il Sung is the savior who delivers them from oppression.  At the time Sea of Blood was released, however, the first generation of revolutionaries was in control of the country, memories of Japanese colonialism were fresh, and people were more enthusiastic about their country’s future.

Today, the North Korean government is struggling to indoctrinate its “third generation (3G).”  The 3Gs have no memories of Japanese colonialism or of the Korean War.  Children, who have likely never met an American, do not hate the “American Imperialists” like their parents and grandparents.  3Gs have seen many state institutions collapse; they have seen the social contract broken; they have seen economic decline; and they have survived a famine.  Additionally, they have grown up buying and selling in markets and are more familiar with South Korean and Chinese culture than their parents could have imagined at their age. 

Given these huge demographic changes, it seems probable that the style of ASGD represents the regime’s most recent efforts to socialize this new generation of comrades.  A School Girl’s Diary makes only one explicit reference to the leader and portrays life as less than ideal.  After sixty years of revolutionary struggle, people fight with each other, express their egos, and feel jealousy. In short, the film portrays characters, locations, and motivations that many contemporary North Koreans could probably identify with.  As was noted in the discussion following the film, Mickey Mouse made a cameo on a backpack (likely imported from China and bought at a market), there was a veiled reference to sex, or lack thereof, and the star of the film complained about her absentee father (the metaphorical Kim Jong il).

You can read a professional review of the film in Variety here.

You can read academic discussion of the film here. (h/t Werner Koidl)

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Posted in Art, Civil society, Film | 4 Comments »

North Korea home brews…

April 9th, 2008

Where do North Koreans get their alcohol?  The Daily NK has the scoop:

North Korean citizens started producing/distributing home-brewed liquor in 1987 after the prohibition of the production and sale of liquor in North Korea was lifted. 

Liquor made in the home of an average North Korean citizen consists of ingredients such as corn or rice and malt. The yeast cultivated from rice powder is combined with porridge prepared from the powder and fermented in a vat. After 12~14 days, the rice porridge and the yeast will produce a chemical reaction and will turn into a thick porridge, which is called “liquor porridge” in North Korea.

Refrigerating the steam from the cultivated liquor porridge and turning it into fluid produces liquor. North Korean citizens enjoy over 40% of alcohol content-liquor and approximately 800ml of liquor is produced from a kilogram of corn. A bottle of liquor (500 ml) is close to the price of a kilogram of corn, so selling liquor made from this produce can bring in a small profit.

Read the full story here:
North Korea’s Inspection of Home-Brewed Wine by the Party
Daily NK
Jung Kwon Ho
4/9/2008

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Posted in Alcohol, Civil society, Food, General markets (FMR: Farmers Market), Price liberalization, Private property | Comments Closed

The Supreme People’s Assembly to Be Held on the 9th

April 9th, 2008

Daily NK
Park In Ho
4/9/2008

The 6th round of the 11th term of Supreme People’s Assembly will be held at Mansudae Assembly Hall on the 9th of April.

The Supreme People’s Assembly consists of 687 delegates from districts, cities, counties, and even sub-organizations of Chongryon (General Association of North Korean Residents in Japan). It also includes Kim Jong Il himself as the delegate of election district number 649.

The 687 delegates of the 11th term were elected in August 2003, and Kim Jong Il, the Top Secretary of the Chosun (North Korea) Workers Party, was also reselected to the de facto presidency of the National Defense Chairman in September of the same year. The term of office is five years, so the 6th round Assembly will be the last one for the 11th term delegates.

During this round, the Assembly is expected to evaluate the Party’s tasks as suggested by the 2008 New Year’s Common Editorial, to settle the year 2007 accounts and to ratify the budget for 2008.

Additionally, they will address more cases adopted by the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, such as bills, economic issues and foreign affairs.

People pay attention on what kind of blueprints will be suggested, regarding what the New Year’s Common Editorial of this year proposed with regards to the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the regime’s foundation, that is, “We will build ‘the strong great nation’ by 2012 when it will be the 100th year anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth.”

It seems that details of the nuclear programs declaration issue, along with North Korea-U.S. relations and cold relations between the South and the North, will be ignored. However, at least with regard to North-South relations, a resolution supporting the position of the Party may be adopted.

Chief researcher of the Institute for National Security Strategy Lee Ki Dong predicted through a telephone interview with Daily NK that “Although there will not be any presentation on the current issues in North Korea-US relations, they may possibly mention some issues with the South. The most likely way of doing this would be a statement criticizing the ‘Vision 3000: Denuclearization and Openness’ of the Lee Myung Bak administration.”

It is predicted that after the Assembly elects the 12th term of delegates in late 2008, it would rebuild the structure of the national power system by the reselection of Kim Jong Il as the National Defense Chairman.

The delegate’s term of office in the Assembly is 5 years and one delegate per 30,000 people is elected by 100 per cent of favorable votes, with a 100 per cent voting rate. The general laws and ordinances are adopted by a majority vote and a revision of the constitution is ratified by a two-thirds vote of the enrolled delegates.

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Posted in 2012 Strong and Prosperous Nation (Kangsong Taeguk), Supreme Peoples Assembly | Comments Closed

Koryo Tours quarterly update published

April 9th, 2008

Koryo Tours, run by Nick Bonner, Simon Cockerell, and Hannah Barraclough, has published its quarterly report.  Read it here.

Inside, readers will learn about the upcoming year in North Korean tourism (Americans likely allowed in for Arirang in the fall) as well as other information on the NY Phil’s performance in Pyongyang and the World Cup qualifier in Shanghai. 

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Posted in Koryo Tours, Tourism | Comments Closed

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